O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
NURSE
Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?
JULIET
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murdered me. I would forget it fain,
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds!
‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.’
That ‘banishèd’, that one word ‘banishèd’
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there;
Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship
And needly will be ranked with other griefs,
Why followed not, when she said ‘Tybalt’s dead’,
‘Thy father’, or ‘thy mother’, nay, or both,
Which modern lamentation might have moved?
But with a rearward following Tybalt’s death,
‘Romeo is banishèd‘-to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. ‘Romeo is banishèd’—
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death. No words can that woe sound.
Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?
NURSE
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corpse.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
JULIET
Wash they his wounds with tears; mine shall be spent
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguiled,
Both you and I, for Romeo is exiled.
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come, cords; come, Nurse; I’ll to my wedding bed,
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!
NURSE (taking up the cords)
Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
To comfort you. I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
I’ll to him. He is hid at Laurence’ cell.
JULIET (giving her a ring)
O, find him! Give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.
Exeunt ⌈severally⌉
3.3 Enter Friar Laurence
FRIAR LAURENCE
Romeo, come forth, come forth, thou fear-full man.
Affliction is enamoured of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
Enter Romeo
ROMEO
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand
That I yet know not?
FRIAR LAURENCE Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company.
I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.
ROMEO
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?
FRIAR LAURENCE
A gentler judgement vanished from his lips:
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.
ROMEO
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say ‘death’,
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say ‘banishment’.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Hence from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROMEO
There is no world without Verona walls
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence banished is banished from the world,
And world’s exile is death. Then ‘banishèd’
Is death mistermed. Calling death ‘banishèd’
Thou cutt‘st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me.
FRIAR LAURENCE
O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath rushed aside the law
And turned that black word ’death’ to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
ROMEO
‘Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.
They are free men, but I am banished.
And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But ‘banishèd’ to kill me—‘banishèd’?
O friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver and my friend professed,
To mangle me with that word ‘banishèd’?
FRIAR LAURENCE
Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.
ROMEO
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
FRIAR LAURENCE
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word—
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee though thou art banished.
ROMEO
Yet ‘banishèd’? Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.
FRIAR LAURENCE
O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
ROMEO
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
FRIAR LAURENCE
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
ROMEO
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy
hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
He falls upon the ground
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
Knock within
FRIAR LAURENCE
Arise, one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.
ROMEO
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like enfold me from the search of eyes.
Knocking within
FRIAR LAURENCE
Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise.
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay a white.—Stand up.
Still knock within
Run to my study.—By and by!—God�
��s will,
What simpleness is this?
Knock within
I come, I come.
Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What’s your
will?
NURSE (within)
Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
I come from Lady Juliet.
FRIAR LAURENCE ⌈opening the door⌉ Welcome then.
Enter the Nurse
NURSE
O holy friar, O tell me, holy friar,
Where is my lady’s lord? Where’s Romeo?
FRIAR LAURENCE
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.
NURSE
O, he is even in my mistress’ case,
Just in her case! O woeful sympathy,
Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
Blubb’ring and weeping, weeping and blubb’ring.
(To Romeo) Stand up, stand up, stand an you be a man,
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROMEO (rising)
Nurse.
NURSE Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.
ROMEO
Spak’st thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stained the childhood of our joy
With blood removed but little from her own?
Where is she, and how doth she, and what says
My concealed lady to our cancelled love?
NURSE
O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And ’Tybalt’ calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
ROMEO As if that name
Shot from the deadly level of a gun
Did murder her as that name’s cursed hand
Murdered her kinsman. O tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
⌈He offers to stab himself, and the Nurse snatches the dagger away⌉
FRIAR LAURENCE Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better tempered.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself,
And slay thy lady that in thy life lives
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail‘st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth,
Since birth and heaven and earth, all three, do meet
In thee at once, which thou at once wouldst lose?
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which like a usurer abound‘st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vowed to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismembered with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead:
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slewest Tybalt: there art thou happy.
The law that threatened death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile: there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings light upon thy back,
Happiness courts thee in her best array,
But, like a mishavèd and sullen wench,
Thou pout’st upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed.
Ascend her chamber; hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.
NURSE
O Lord, I could have stayed here all the night
To hear good counsel! O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.
ROMEO
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
⌈Nurse offers to go in, and turns again⌉
NURSE (giving the ring)
Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
ROMEO
How well my comfort is revived by this. Exit Nurse
FRIAR LAURENCE
Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state.
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguised from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand. ’Tis late. Farewell. Good night.
ROMEO
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell. Exeunt ⌈severally⌉
3.4 Enter Capulet, his Wife, and Paris
CAPULET
Things have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I. Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late. She’ll not come down tonight.
I promise you, but for your company
I would have been abed an hour ago.
PARIS
These times of woe afford no times to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.
CAPULET’S WIFE
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow.
Tonight she’s mewed up to her heaviness.
⌈Paris offers to go in, and Capulet calls him again⌉
CAPULET
Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love. I think she will be ruled
In all respects by me. Nay, more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed.
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love,
And bid her-mark you me?—on Wednesday next—
But soft—what day is this?
PARIS Monday, my lord.
CAPULET
Monday. Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.
O’ Thursday let it be. 0’ Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado—a friend or two.
For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much.
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?
>
PARIS
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.
CAPULET
Well, get you gone. O’ Thursday be it, then.
(To his Wife) Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed.
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.—
Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho!—
Afore me, it is so very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.
Exeunt ⌈Capulet and his wife at one door, Paris at another door⌉
3.5 Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft ⌈with the ladder of cords⌉
JULIET
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fear-full hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yon pom’granate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET
Yon light is not daylight; I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhaled
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet. Thou need’st not to be gone.
ROMEO
Let me be ta‘en, let me be put to death.
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow;
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome; Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.
JULIET
It is, it is. Hie hence, be gone, away.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathed toad changed eyes.
O, now I would they had changed voices, too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.
ROMEO
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 132
